Last week, in an effort to target President Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, sketchy porn-lawyer Michael Avenatti received and released stolen financial records for a group of people who held the name Michael Cohen. At least two of the people who had their records released were the wrong Michael Cohen.

In a New Yorker article today, far-left playtime ‘journalist’ Ronan Farrow writes about his contact with the law-enforcement official who stole the Cohen financial records and gave them to the sketchy porn lawyer.

From the timing it appears the Treasury Department Office of Inspector General is close to catching the criminal leaker. As such, Farrow writes a sympathetic outline attempting to shape a narrative of a “law-enforcement official” as a wounded ‘whistleblower‘.

New Yorker – Last week, several news outlets obtained financial records showing that Michael Cohen, President Trump’s personal attorney, had used a shell company to receive payments from various firms with business before the Trump Administration.

In the days since, there has been much speculation about who leaked the confidential documents, and the Treasury Department’s inspector general has launched a probe to find the source. That source, a law-enforcement official, is speaking publicly for the first time, to The New Yorker, to explain the motivation: the official had grown alarmed after being unable to find two important reports on Cohen’s financial activity in a government database. The official, worried that the information was being withheld from law enforcement, released the remaining documents. (read more)

Here’s the problem with Farrow’s sympathetic motive framework. The ‘law-enforcement official’ stole, and released, financial records of the wrong Michael Cohens. That’s not the conduct of a “whistleblower”; that’s the conduct of an entrenched and corrupt partisan ideologue holding -and exploiting- their position within law-enforcement.

Here is the other problem with the sympathetic motive scenario, if the user of a database suspected a record was missing, he would start by asking the office that oversees information technology. If still unresolved, then go to Internal Affairs or its equivalent. There is no provision for putting such problems before the sleaziest lawyer currently walking the face of the planet

I think a better question would be…. why was he looking for the two documents to begin with. He was doing some official business or by an official request? If it was by request, then someone is looking into the situation and his action should be to report back… reports not available! He could also follow procedure and report them missing thru his organization to replace the documents.

IMHO, sounds like the leaker was on his own mission of investigation and was going to leak what ever he could find! Is it even plausable that he leaked so little, because he could not find more?

The leaker’s best play now…. that’s my story… and I’m sticking to it! Don’t give up the LIE!!!

What continues to amaze me is what a collective bunch of zealots these Progressive foot soldiers are in service to their masters. Willing to break the law, endanger their family’s financial future, lie cheat and steal for what? Now I understand why there are so many freaky sex cults associated with these Progressive freaks, they have overlaid their S& M mentality on their politics. Give me an honorable, critical thinking, God fearing individual any day.

You don’t regularly engage in ‘strategic leaking’, or prosecutorial miconduct if you have a good, airtite case.
These guys are all soo screwed! And they did it to themselves. Just censored myself, was about to say something highly offensive. Anyway, the desperation reeks. Like rats scurrying to corners when lights turned on.
You can run, but you can’t hide.
I THINK, as this is all exposed to light, as these guys take their place in history, we may not have to worry about this happening again. NO ONE will want this legacy.

“As such, Farrow writes a sympathetic outline attempting to shape a narrative of a “law-enforcement official” as a wounded ‘whistleblower‘.”

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You know… why do they even bother going through the motions, or make the effort to ‘shape a narrative’ anyway?

It’s not like the American Pravda (MSM) cares what We the People think. The government actively oppresses We the People, so they certainly don’t care what We think. Celebrityland certainly doesn’t care what we think.

Nobody cares. We barely register as cattle to these people. If they could be any more scornful, disdainful and disinterested in what We the People think, how would they do it?

So WHO are they constantly shaping their ‘narratives’ for, and why go to all the trouble?

They don’t care what we think, and we don’t believe anything they say.

Information (and even propaganda) channels has been democratized. MSM no longer hold the keys, so the only thing they can do at this point is engage in overt, full-throated “narrative shaping”. Hopefully, for them, someone is listening, and there certainly are a FEW out there who will, unquestioningly, lap it up. Otherwise, they are holding onto a time gone bye-bye when sheep wouldn’t challenge they’re collective authority. And by “they’re” I think you know who I mean.

“MSM no longer hold the keys, so the only thing they can do at this point is engage in overt, full-throated “narrative shaping”. Hopefully, for them, someone is listening, and there certainly are a FEW out there who will, unquestioningly, lap it up. ”

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I understand, and I’m sure some will, but the amount of resources and time and money devoted to this exercise is ludicrously disproportionate to the desired outcome, if there even is a coherent desired outcome. It’s like spending a trillion dollars to prove you can push a golf ball around the world with your nose.

Okay, then what? Who cares?

The majority aren’t even paying attention. Those who are paying attention are primarily in two camps; those who aren’t fooled, and those who want to be fooled.

Those who want to be fooled are already satisfied customers, they’ve already bought everything the MSM (American Pravda) is selling, they’re tapped out. Yet American Pravda is ratcheting up their rhetoric and sales pitch to the Moon. They’re pouring everything they’ve got into it.

And for what? A continually diminishing percentage of the population who already bought their product?

They (MSM) demonstrate every day that they don’t care what we think. They couldn’t be more up front and in our faces about that if they tried. Our own Congressional representatives don’t care what we think. They are going to do what they’re going to do, regardless of what we think.

So it seems very strange that they would invest so much time, effort, money and angst into trying to ‘shape narratives’ for us, when they couldn’t care less what we think… what we think is not going to have any appreciable effect on what they do, at all.

I’m just trying to figure out who their ‘audience’ is… who are they putting this ‘big show’ on for? Because it sure ain’t us. We’re irrelevant to them.

So who are they doing all the Kabuki Theater and Theater of the Absurd for? Themselves? The D.C./NY corridor? Is it pure Narcissism?

Scott-I think the whole point with the media is not that they care what we think. Just the opposite. Those who run the MSM believe we the people are too stupid to think for ourselves and they need to show us the way, how to vote and how to live our lives. With them it’s all propaganda 24/7/365.

“Scott-I think the whole point with the media is not that they care what we think. Just the opposite. Those who run the MSM believe we the people are too stupid to think for ourselves and they need to show us the way, how to vote and how to live our lives. With them it’s all propaganda 24/7/365.”

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I agree it’s propaganda 24/7/365, but it’s like the Wizard of Oz trying to manipulate everyone after the curtain has already been pulled back. Why? What’s the point?

The Wizard (in this analogy) is going to do what the Wizard is going to do. He doesn’t need our approval, our permission or our understanding. They are not dependent on what we think, they are acting autonomously because there is no longer any connection between what we think and what they do.

They have access to so much money that the old model doesn’t apply anymore. That’s why the NYT can lose money year after year and stays in business, because it’s susidized by ideological interests. That’s why CNN stays in business year after year despite getting blown out in the ratings, because cable TV subsidizes their business… every cable subscriber pays a portion of their cable bill to CNN, even if they block the channel on their system and NEVER watch it.

It’s why companies like Starbucks and Dick’s Sporting Goods and dozens of others make corporate business decisions of a radical Leftist political nature that guarantee it will cost them BILLIONS in lost sales… and they don’t care. They keep doing it, over and over and over again. They don’t even care about the SHAREHOLDERS, much less John Q. Public and what we think.

They’re going do what they’re gonna do, because there is a disconnect from the old model.

So why the big top circus?

Who is it for?

Themselves?

Either they are getting their money from some other source (which would explain why they don’t care about attracting our dollars), or they have gone literally insane, risking (and losing) billions of dollars just so they can virtue-signal to their social circle on the east and left coasts.

But if they keep that up under the old business model (consumer dollars), they won’t be in those social circles for long, they’ll be filing bankruptcy and going on welfare (or maybe prison, for gross financial negligence resulting in the loss of billions of shareholder dollars).

There is a big piece of this puzzle that just doesn’t fit. Something’s not adding up. It’s drawing attention to itself by its absence.

Hardly pointless. This is being done for the great middle swath of voters who don’t pay much attention and can be swayed by such tactics. He is setting the narrative in their minds so that when they hear of this the first thing and possibly only thing they will know is what they read in this and other, similar pieces or heard on TV.
People such as this are in partnership with liberal politicians and are doing exactly as they are told by their political bosses.

This goes back to that old adage that if you tell a lie long enough and loud enough, it tends to become a truth. That’s what the PC crowd is banking on! Lies, lies and more lies!
Do they think we’re too stupid to know what is right? Are they correct? H3ll no. Obama said we cling to our God and our guns. Yes we do. We also cling to the facts and we, unlike the masses he lead, take time to investigate the facts, not “believe” because some politician speaks it as a “truth”! Take Hillary’s 5 counties and become your own country. Their leaving will be our gain!!

“Hardly pointless. This is being done for the great middle swath of voters who don’t pay much attention and can be swayed by such tactics.”

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Well, let’s game this out. The starting point is the great swath of voters who don’t pay much attention, and can be swayed by such tactics.

Isn’t that an inherent contradiction? How can they be swayed, if they are not paying attention? Consider the enormous amount of time, effort, money and resources being devoted to this pursuit. How does one reconcile that with the acknowledgment that their target audience doesn’t “pay much attention”?

Conversely, how can someone who doesn’t “pay much attention” be swayed by such tactics?

If it was something you did on the margins, throw a little money at it because the cost was negligible so why not, that would be one thing; but this is their main strategy, their full-frontal attack.

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“He is setting the narrative in their minds so that when they hear of this the first thing and possibly only thing they will know is what they read in this and other, similar pieces or heard on TV.”

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You are talking about Sketchy Porn Lawyer™ specifically, and that’s fine, he is a subset, while I have been speaking more broadly, to include the entire MSM apparatus — not just on this subject, but their entire full-court press on all fronts.

But Sketchy Porn Lawyer™ will serve as a fine example. Suppose he is wildly successful in accomplishing his objective of setting a particular ‘narrative’ in the minds of those who don’t pay much attention and are not actively involved or engaged anyway.

Then what?

So following this through to its logical conclusion, Sketchy has planted a seed in the minds of a bunch of people across America who are not engaged and who don’t really care. So what? How does that help him or his cause?

What is the ‘effect’ he is hoping for, and how would it impact himself or his client in any legal capacity? Toby from Texas won’t be sitting on any jury, and neither will 99.999(9)% of anyone who ever hears Sketchy or his narrative.

And for those 12 people who might be potential jurors in a case related to his client, whatever ‘narrative’ they believed on the ‘outside’ will be countered by the prosecutor once they’re on the ‘inside’ in a courtroom. And besides that, the prosecutor will object to any juror who is obviously biased from being seated on the jury anyway.

So Sketchy isn’t doing this for any legal benefit, he’s ‘trying his case in the court of public opinion’ for some other reason. And the only other reason that immediately comes to mind is MONEY. He’s getting his 15 minutes of fame, and Windy Daniels is getting an extra 15 minutes outside the porn arena, and presumably the exposure is resulting in money, some way or another.

Or they are both being paid big dollars by somebody as part of a concerted effort to attack POTUS (e.g., Sketchy’s recently discovered $8 million windfall profit).

If either or both of those reasons are so, that would explain Sketchy the Porn Lawyer™ and his client Dicey Blowhard, but it doesn’t explain the MSM, because the MSM is hemorrhaging money via lost readership and lost viewership, translating into lost ad revenue — if the old business model is still intact. Which, apparently, it isn’t.

So the MSM is certainly part of the coordinated attack on POTUS, and the MSM doesn’t care if they alienate the entire viewing audience in the process, so somebody has to be bankrolling them as a private contractor, they are no longer ‘legitimate public companies’ in any sense of the word.

In the MSM’s capacity as private contractors paid by a client, they are not dependent on the ‘free market’, only on the largess of their private benefactor(s).

That would explain how they can survive financially while destroying their own market share, and it would explain their motivation, but it still doesn’t explain what they hope to gain from all the effort.

The “people who don’t pay much attention” aren’t likely to vote, and the Left will rig the vote anyway, just as they always do, in every district and precinct where corruption is entrenched.

So I still don’t understand who their audience is, or why they maintain the pretense. If I was Jeff Zucker or any of the other clowns running these propaganda operations, how do I justify the monumental cost of the operation to my private benefactor(s)?

It won’t help them legally. The evidence is the evidence, and evidence doesn’t care about public opinion. It has destroyed any remaining vestige of the MSM’s credibility and nuked their entire platform in the process.

It won’t help them publicly — trust in news media is at historic lows — and it won’t help their (apparent) private financial benefactors much in the voting booth, if that was an objective. And besides, they have long-term voter fraud built into their voting model anyway.

I don’t understand why they continue the pretense.

I don’t understand the purpose, or the hoped-for benefit, and how it could justify the cost in time, effort, money and resources expended.

Conspiracy Theory: Michael Avenatti paid the “law enforcement official” out of his extensive legal slush fund to procure “Michael Cohen” SARs. The rest is history, and somebodies (plural) are in trouble.

Hmmm…dunno…
Cohen, et al his genre….. this Cohen fellow looks like some flash, talk show aware plastic surgeon, I’d go and consult someone at John Hopkins………… President Trump dealing with poseur, tabloid lawyers is not a good look.

The very end of the Ronan Farrow story almost produced projectile vomiting on my part when I read it. Fortunately, I skipped dinner. FTA: “This is a terrifying time to be an American!” That tells you right there this is no whistleblower, this is an activist ideologue who stole the information. FTA:

“Of the potential for legal consequences, the official said, “To say that I am terrified right now would be an understatement.” But, referring to the released report, as well as the potential contents of the missing reports, the official also added, “This is a terrifying time to be an American, to be in this situation, and to watch all of this unfold.””

@Sylvia…The whole story is suspicious. Help me out here: is it possible this is playing in reverse? That is, the correct sequence is:
We have been poaching files, from Treasury, FBI, etc.; now they are on to us; so we need a back-story to claim ‘whistleblower’. Get a lawyer for this hooker, get him 147 MSM interviews in only 10 days so everyone is paying attention to him, then drop some previously filched files on him (stolen for other reasons) and make the ‘whistleblower’ claim to a reporter.
As you point out, this is not a whistleblower but an ideologue, one who may be involved in crimes preceding Avenatti. There are steps an honest agent would take, like asking the files authority why files are missing, that would precede ‘blowing a whistle’. This Potemkin whistleblower, with Farrow’s publicity help , may have taken these actions to establish some ‘whistleblower’ position to avoid prosecution.
What do you think?

I’m well past the point where i take everything at face value. For instance were the two wrong Michael Cohens thrown into the mix just to obfuscate and make it look like the leaker had grabbed material on all of that name, when he/she was in a position to access the real Cohen stuff, maybe from when Mueller raided Cohen’s stuff.

So disappointed. Treepers have been tracking down these clowns in the DOJ/FBI/IRS/Obama admin for years. These people are basically stupid and sloppy. I’ve known teenagers that were more sophisticated than these morons. White hat, black hat…..doesn’t matter. Dumb as rocks…

80% is spent detailing highly confidential allegedly suspicious private citizen financial data having zero connection with the Trump campaign (Trump’s legal team has been repeatedly told by Mueller that Trump is not a target of the Cohen investigation).

So most of the article is spent attemping to bend the narrative to yet more tawdry unrelated nothingness.

I think it’s far more alarming that we have such incredibly stupid people in law enforcement. When it comes to day-to-day criminals, they prioritize committing the crime before considering how likely it might be they will be caught. I get it. Criminals want to do their crimes. It’s what makes them criminals after all. But people who are doing law enforcement see how stupid criminals are each and every day. They should see criminal fails every day and learn from it.

This guy? He didn’t learn from it… this guy or girl anyway. Why I get this mental image of Farkas in my head with the bug eyes? Who knows… bottom line? Idiots.

I know someone who dealt with local police, sheriff’s, state FBI, and drug teams, etc..in an informal setting.. They said these folks are not the sharpest tools in the shed and with problems….I did, however meet an FBI guy in a murder case who I thought was pretty sharp.. Maybe it’s mostly the brown-nosers that get moved up the chain? I hope there is not systemic corruption in all law enforcement, as that would be terrible!! I was asked in a jury selection case if I “trusted the police” Knowing what I now knew…I asked for the fifth to not answer that!!LOL! I did get a laugh from all in attendance!

The term “law enforcement official” was deliberate, I think. It’s someone in the FBI, whether the local office or out of DC. And that person had access to Treasury Dept records without a warrant apparently.

We need mandatory minimum sentences for crimes like this. I’d put this leaker in big boy prison for twenty years. In the current circumstances I’d like to see him arrested in a no knock raid and also used by the Michael Cohen’s and bankrupted.

I said this on earlier thread – hello judge Kimba Wood ?! Remember her quotes in open Court ? “I know SDNY , I trust professionals … etc should not worry blah blah “ . Now like that famous quote from Custer’s scout “ Boy, look at all those feathers over that hill , probably just a large flock of turkeys “

Shocked? If you understand Kimba Wood’s background then you would not not expect her to do anything by the proven letter of the law. She’s strictly Leftwing and anti Trump all the way. She never even hesitated. This was a setup before it began.

This has been said a lot here and I do not think it is true – I do NOT think these these people are stupid. I think they are so deep in the “what is the worst that could happen” swamp that they have no fear, and act accordingly. This, is what we need to be wary of. Their reactions will be ones of fear and self protection as their assumptions (hopefully) are proven wrong. OR – they may fight – using all of the resources available. Regardless, we need to be vigilant.

An ironic development in this story would be if the person who illegally provided Cohen’s financial information was paid off by Avenatti or Perkins Coie. If probable cause this occurred is determined to exist, then it’s time to raid some buildings.

If you were to just walk by the FBI or Justice Department buildings in DC you would notice a foul stench coming from both of those buildings….he same stench emanating from the halls of Congress these days….Swamp water smell like that often….

As time moves forward and this leaker becomes known I would not be surprised if Avenatti comes to represent the leaker as the temperature rises. Also do not be surprised if the same money source(s) paying Avenatti also have already paid the leaker and will continue to pay the legal costs of the leaker in the future. When government becomes corrupt at the top it is not long before others down the authority chain start taking in money for politics.

My question is, would it be so bad if someone kidnapped & tortured these “Journalists” and get the info they have & who it came from the “leakers”? I am not saying our Law Enforcement should do this, but what if some “concerned citizens” were to do this and Expose Crooked Lying Journalists for what they really are? Traitors is the word you were searching for.
Would you be named a Hero or a Villain by LEO & the Public?
Just my curious mind wandering………

Well, to explain your motivation: you as the official had grown alarmed after being unable to find the leakers on Cohen’s financial activity in a governmen, you as the official, worried that the information was being withheld from law enforcement, so in order to get the information you needed to waterboard to the perp.

There, just like the law enforcement/leaker said about the documents. You are now a whistleblower.

The “law enforcement official” was unable to dig up “two important reports on Cohen’s financial activity in a government database” In a Treasury Department database, right? I’m assuming “law enforcement official” is someone working for the FBI. So do FBI agents or FBI people above the agent level have unfettered access to Treasury Department info? Or any other info? Did the person have a warrant?

I am a retired CPA. I used to have to go to CPE classes in order to keep the license. One of those was run by a former Treasury agent. He talked about the SARS. Banks are required to report known “or” suspicious activity over a financial threshold which can be as low as $5,000. The fact that there was a SARS for these transactions proves nothing. Michael Cohen should add Ronan Farrow to the list of lawsuits which is growing daily. Michael Cohen won’t be hired by anyone after what was done to him.

Remember what Michael Caputo said… That the goal of the witch hunt is to ruin anyone who had the temerity to associate him/herself with Trump, or ANYONE who challenges the Establishment/Deep State. THAT is terrifying.

A warrant should be required to search these private financial records. If not, what’s to keep the “black hats” from using it to target their enemies or using it to make money by selling the information to interested parties.

If this database can be searched without probable cause and a warrant then it is a violation a citizen’s 4th ammendment rights. Read it – and remember it was written almost 230 years ago!

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

There is a legal process by which someone gains “whistleblower” status; being unable to find documents in a database that you may or may not even have legitimate access to, is not one one of them. It’s not even a predicate for that process.

If this was a law enforcement officer, than he would’ve known to report his findings to the appropriate law enforcement officer to follow up; not to report his suspicions to a shady ambulance chaser on the payroll of Daniel Jones and -in all likelihood- CNN.

My guess is that this “law enforcement official” is actually a security guard who broke into the system holding the database, and he did so for a fee. There is literally just no way the story was told by Farrow is true.

The Deep Statists will OUT themselves … and DRAIN themselves … given enough time. MY President should dangle as many juicy lures as possible to flush these creeps out of our government. I hope he has a cabinet Dept. of trolling Deep Statist leakers.

When this story broke last week I went over to ABC “News” and trolled the comments section. Oh man it was funny. Everyone was betting the mortgage that PTRUMP was getting perp walked within hours. Then I started breaking the news to them that it was the wrong Michael Cohen.

The more desperate and flustered they get, the more careless they will become, the more mistakes they will make. Gladvto see it. Of course, getting them to publish retractions prominently is a problem.